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The Courts

Submission + - Crazy non-compete contracts???

Submitted by
JL-b8
JL-b8 writes: "Dear Slashdot, I've just encountered a (from what I know) strange occurrence. A group of friends who work for a small web design firm are being forced to sign a non-compete agreement with a clause that prohibits the employee from working with a competing company for 12 months after the date of their leaving. Is this a common thing? And what has happened to people who have signed these things? The owners claim it's a standardly practiced clause but I don't see how the hell a web developer/designer is supposed to find work in a city for a year without moving to a completely different city. I'd like more input as to how this weighs in to the rest of the companies out there."
X

Submission + - LinuxBIOS with X Server Inside

Submitted by
acassis
acassis writes: "LinuxBIOS is a BIOS replacement. You can use it to start Linux from Hard Disk or even using Linux inside BIOS flash. This work show LinuxBIOS with Linux and graphic mode inside the BIOS flash. There is used a tiny X Server known as Kdrive (formely tinyx). The graphic mode and window manager (MatchBox) starts in 8s.
See yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuzRsXKm_NQ
More info about this system: http://www.linuxabordo.com.br/wiki/index.php?title =LinuxBIOS_Graphical"
Security

Submission + - Amazon... we have a (password) problem...

Submitted by
poodlehat
poodlehat writes: "I was on Amazon.com earlier today to check on an order I placed. I went to log in, and accidentally appended some extra characters to the end of my password. Me, being a lazy typist, decided to hit enter and re-enter my password on the inevitable login rejection screen. Well, imagine my surprise when the site let me straight into my account! I logged back out and intentionally typed something completely wrong in the password field and got rejected, so it it definitely only checking up to the number of characters in the stored password. This seems totally unacceptable to me — the two "keywords" should have to match exactly, right? Or is this behavior considered acceptable in the security world? I tried to find a technical contact at Amazon.com, the customer service page just doesn't feel like it would cut it on this one... anyone have a contact?"
Businesses

Submission + - New MMORPG Tries "Crowd Sourcing"

Submitted by
KingSkippus
KingSkippus writes: "BBC news is reporting that publisher Acclaim Games is working with developer Dave Perry to develop Top Secret, a new MMORPG using 'crowd sourcing.' It will be a commercial game with a paid professional core team that works with a larger volunteer community to develop the code, stories, art, and audio in the game. Perry says, 'With 20,000 people signed up we are already the biggest development team in history. We will end up with 100,000 people on this team. If 1% is any good, we are good to go.' Could this be a missing link that brings us commercial-quality community-developed gaming?"
Censorship

In France, Only Journalists Can Film Violence 531

Posted by kdawson from the possibly-intended-consequences dept.
BostonBTS sends word that the French Constitutional Council has just made it illegal to film violence unless you are a professional journalist (or to distribute a video containing violence). The law was approved exactly 16 years after amateur videographer George Holliday filmed Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King. The Council was tidying up a body of law about offenses against the public order, and wanted to ban "happy slapping." A charitable reading would be that the lawmakers stumbled into unintended consequences. Not according to Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi: "The broad drafting of the law so as to criminalize the activities of citizen journalists unrelated to the perpetrators of violent acts is no accident, but rather a deliberate decision by the authorities, said [Cohet]. He is concerned that the law, and others still being debated, will lead to the creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet."
Privacy

Submission + - Eavesdropping O.K. says Committee

Submitted by
ShoeUnited
ShoeUnited writes: "I was reading today in the AP about an article that says it is ok for Pres. Bush to use electronic eavesdropping.

To quote the article:
"A White House privacy board has determined that two of the Bush administration's controversial surveillance programs do not violate citizens' civil liberties. After operating mostly in secret for a year, the five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Board is to release its first report to Congress next week.""
The Courts

Submission + - Third Level Domain Legal Issues

Submitted by
MikeB
MikeB writes: "This is my first post ever, so please excuse any etiquette errors. I have a question for the lawyer types.

My company is looking into third level domain names (i.e. XXXXX.website.com), and has raised the issue of using trademarked (or otherwise legally protected) names in that third level slot. Our intent is to use the model numbers of the hardware that our software works on in the thid level area to specify a landing page for each model. Since those model names/numbers are owned by a separate company, does that open us up to legal ramifications if that company decided to press charges? I checked with Network Solutions (www.networksolutions.com) and they told me that there were no legal ramifications, but I wanted to check with the larger community.

So the main question: Do we open ourselves up to legal attacks by using the aforementioned names in the third level domain slot of our company's website? Thank you for any help you guys can give."
Networking

Submission + - Will an open source router replace your Cisco ?

Submitted by
Tom
Tom writes: "David Davis CCIE, CCNA, CCNP test drives Open-Source Router....."In my opinion, anything you want to do with a standard Cisco router, you can do with Vyatta for the most part, and you don't have to worry about the various Cisco IOS licenses.""
Biotech

Submission + - SPAM: An architectural plan of the cell

Submitted by
FiReaNGeL
FiReaNGeL writes: "Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the University of Colorado have now obtained the first 3D visualization of a complete eukaryotic cell at a resolution high enough to resolve the cytoskeleton's precise architectural plan in fission yeast. The image of this unicellular organism reveals remarkable insights into the fine structure of the cytoskeleton as well as its interactions with other parts of the cell. "Our 3D image of fission yeast can serve as a reference map of the cell for all biologists interested in its architecture," says Johanna Höög. "You can extract information about all sorts of cellular structures and processes from it or use it to place findings into the spatial context of the cell.""
Enlightenment

Submission + - Pioneer in Global Warming Reasearch Now Skeptical

Submitted by The Underwriter
The Underwriter writes: Article from Canada's National Post, March 2, 2007

"Claude Allegre, one of France's leading socialists and among her most celebrated scientists, was among the first to sound the alarm about the dangers of global warming.

"Fifteen years ago, Dr. Allegre was among the 1500 prominent scientists who signed 'World Scientists' Warning to Humanity' (Wikipedia), a highly publicized letter stressing that global warming's 'potential risks are very great' and demanding a new caring ethic that recognizes the globe's fragility in order to stave off 'spirals of environmental decline, poverty, and unrest, leading to social, economic and environmental collapse.'"

In light of the volumes of research conducted since then, Dr. Allegre recently renounced his previous views. He now believes global warming is "over-hyped and an environmental concern of second rank."

" 'The cause of this climate change is unknown,' he states matter of factly. There is no basis for saying, as most do, that the 'science is settled.' "

Part 13 of the National Post's "Deniers" series, about scientists who contradict the majority opinion on climate science.
The Internet

Submission + - What does it take to survive the Slashdot effect?

Submitted by
Dave
Dave writes: "How much hardware, bandwidth, etc. does it take for a server to survive the Slashdot effect? Is the Fark or Digg effect worse than Slashdot? Is there a guaranteed way to avoid these effects?"
Censorship

Submission + - Egyptian jailed for blogging

Submitted by Guzzitza
Guzzitza writes: Abdel Karim Suleiman, a 22-year-old blogger and former law student at al-Azhar Islamic university, became the first Egyptian jailed for his blogging when he was handed a four-year prison sentence. http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/egyptian-blogger s-beware/2007/03/06/1173156498381.html/

FTA: "Suleiman accused the conservative Sunni institution of promoting extremist thought and described some companions of the Prophet Mohammed as "terrorists". He also compared President Hosni Mubarak to the dictatorial Pharaohs of ancient Egypt."

Abdel Karim Suleiman was handed a 4 year prison sentence,as a result the international group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has added Egypt to its list of internet Black Holes.
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - SOE Striving to progress Star Wars Galaxies

Submitted by Achan
Achan writes: Star Wars Galaxies Forums show us leadership changes are underway. Julio Torres has been removed and we see the game has no clear direction now. DeadMeat tells us there are no plans for an expansion in 2007, there are no plans for updating space content, and asks people for their feedback. They ask for player feedback, however the first thing noticed in the thread is excessive deletions of postings, and telling people they will not role back to pre-nge, the highly controversial changes that almost killed the game. However they still boast they are proud of the current game. Noticeably, SOE responses are much friendlier than in the past. After reading all SOE posts in this thread, one can assume they are working with a low budget and skeleton crew, thoughts?

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